Customer Reviews

Guidelines for Bias-Free Writing

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"The pharisaical, malefic, and incognitant 'Guidelines' is a product of the pointy-headed wowsers at the Association of American University Presses, who, in 1987, established a 'Task Force' on bias free language filled with cranks, pokenoses, blow-hards, four-flushers, and pettifogs. The foolish and contemptible product of this seven years wasted in mining the shafts of indignation has been published by that cow-besieged, basketball-sotted sleep-away camp for hick bourgeois offspring, Indiana University, under the aegis of its University Press - a traditional dumping ground for academic deadwood so bereft of talent, intelligence, and endeavor as to be useless even in the dull precincts of Midwestern state college classrooms.

"...the Task Force seems to be nothing but a rat bag of shoddy pedagogues, athletes of the tongue, professional pick-nits filling the stupid hours of their pointless days with nagging the yellow-bellied editors of University Presses which print volume after volume of bound bum-wad fated to sit unread in college library stacks until the sun expires.... There they are, in a stuffy seminar room in some inconvenient corner of the campus, with unwashed hair, Wal-Mart blue jeans, batik print tent dresses, and off-brand running shoes, the synthetic fibers from their fake Aran Island sweaters pilling at the elbows while they give each other high fives. 'Behold "Guidelines" ye Euro-centric, male-dominated power structure, and despair!'"

P.J. O'Rourke

I read this and am reminded of 1984. The tortured arrival at a non offensive language, suggestions for such to writers, is repulsive.

This is intellectual vandalism. Works of literature are not vehicles for consciousness raising unless that is the subject.

Something about this makes me wonder if the writer has gotten on a narrow path, obsessive in nature, and cannot simply do her job.

I've used this book and found it helpful in choosing terminology that is respectful of all people yet still conveys accurate information (in fact, intentionally respectful language typically conveys *more* accurate information than the conventional terms it replaces--a prime example being "retard," which, to my amazement, I still see and hear). I would suggest ignoring the reader reviews that seem driven by a knee-jerk response against the supposed scourge of "political correctness." Part of what I value in freedom of speech is the freedom to be both respectful and accurate in the way I write, and this book is a useful tool in that effort.

I read every journalism reference book I can get my hands on and this one is terrific. It offers excellent advice on how to use words when dealing with topics such as race, gender and ethnicity, and it does so in an easy-to-use dictionary format. My only complaint: It differs slightly from the most recent AP guide on some word usage. But this is definitely one reference tool I wouldn't want to be without.

The very concept of this book is deeply offensive to anyone who values freedom of speech and thought, or good writing. Don't these people realize that they are engaging in intentional brainwashing? You can't change reality by changing the words; you have to change it by changing the reality. Resist these intellectual totalitarians at every opportunity! Use (and treasure) precise, vigorous language, eschew emasculated, politically correct twaddle.